Xbox Addict

As sexy pirate Katarina de Leon (a.k.a. Kat) you set out to avenge her father?s death, thanks to the scourge Captain Hawke, and to discover her mother?s hidden fortune, also completing other quests along the way. You must find the chartstones to point the way, but only after setting sail for the high seas, exploring mysterious islands, unlocking treasure chests and fighting a variety of beasts and boss monsters.

Peg-legged pirates, squawking parrots, voodoo headhunters, buried treasure, ship battles, compelling storylines and a riveting musical score; this game does a really good job of capturing the essence of a true pirate fantasy. Does Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat deserve to walk the plank? Not at all. Don?t get me wrong; this game is not perfect, but what it offers is truly a fun, at times, addictive gaming experience. For me this was a rental, even a re-rental, but for any true pirate adventure lovers out there, you might consider adding this to your collection. I played this game from start to finish and I have to say it has one of the best finales I have ever seen in a video game with a surprising little twist at the end.

The second mode is land mode and occurs when you dock the ship at an Island port. In this mode you are basically sent on a series of hunting quests and involves long stretches of running around and searching which is really not that hard considering you just follow the beaten path. The odd time you venture off the path to find buried treasure which is nearby when the controller starts to vibrate more and more.

To sum it up you find an item, return to a specific area, go to next area, fight monster boss, move on to next world etc. This aspect is one of the fundamental flaws of Pirates; a lot of running around with not a lot of variety in land mode gameplay. The game is not that difficult because it is primarily a hack and slash, but there are a variety of mental puzzles to be solved especially trying to figure out boss monsters? weaknesses and it does feature several difficulty levels to choose from.

Both in sea mode and land mode Kat has an arsenal of weapons at her disposal such as smoke bombs, throwing daggers and poison darts. A unique feature about this game is that Kat can pick up a variety of spells along her journey, some of which are crucial to completing the game. The only problem I encountered with so many weapons in inventory is cycling through them all especially when caught up in a battle.

What I especially liked about Pirates is that most of the games objectives are revealed near the beginning of the game so you never really know which ones you are going to complete first, which adds a nice element of surprise to the game. Another feature to mention is multiplayer ship battle mode but it is nothing to brag about.